Took a great group of guys from the Virginia Pilot out yesterday, departing Little Creek at a shade past 0500 in clear and refreshingly cool conditions. The ride out was a dream, mirror calm with a beautiful sunrise and a few accent clouds on the horizon showing purple and pink against the new blue sky. The water and horizon blended together with the flat calm as we motored towards the Cigar. 40 or so miles out a black speck showed up dead ahead at 6 miles in front of us, stationary on the radar and visible to the naked eye. With the blended horizon it was a stange sight as it stayed 1 finger off the horizon. Now the clear conditions showed the rotor wash and the minesweeping Helo made sense. It's brother helo overtook us on the port side 2 miles abeam and went into it's mission profile. We passed the easternmost bird as he crossed infront and turned back west, trailing his array. Neat sight!
The Sat shot showed a hard Temperature break from 69 to 73 degrees overlayed on structure which we had to check out. Running up to the 10 Fathom Lump we hit a well organized weedline with life signs in about 72 degrees. I slowed the boat and set the outriggers as Don puts out the mixed spread. Lines in and 5 minutes has us tight on our first Wahoo of the day, into the box. All the hits for the day would come on the long or shotgun positions. This one on a Pink/Blue Shooter with a Ballyhoo running on top at 6 knots. Not getting any other takers, we pulled up to the weeds to try and bail, but only some small lesser AJs were in the least interested, despite some surface swirls around the weeds. Resumed the troll and added a deep Braid plug with 48" of single strand wire stand-off leader, running about 20' down at 6 knots.
Talked with 'SeaKing' who was in the general area and said they had picked up some Wahoo at the Wx Bouy earlier. Good talking with you guys! We worked our way east but crossed a few loosely organized weedlines running north/South and trolled thier edges until we hit some breaks to cross-over and contine East. Picked up the second fish, a little False Albacore. Intended to keep it for chunking we put it on ice in the box. The group as many questions about the fish in the area and of course about the lowly FA. We were honest about the "food value" of the Little Tunny, not regarded as good table fare. One of the anglers was a former Korean Marine, coming aboard well-armed with hot sauce and wasabi in the hopes of a high seas sashimi snack. At his urging, Don brought out the FA and cut into the dark red loins of the fish. Into the sauce and then the mouths of several of the guests. Even yours truly had a taste, and truth be told, it was good, not an overly strong taste and the main difference was the fish is not tender like the tuna, but not bad at all! The fish came back, stripped of both loins, our Korean ate almost the whole thing!
At the Weather Bouy about midday the shotgun screams off and the second Hoo of the day comes into the box, a bookend of the first. The Wahoo were 23.1# and 23.3#, nice fish to be sure. The wind picked up after lunch to make a 3 foot wind wave on the swell. It became a little disorganized in places and we quartered it on the ride home, making it just a tad bumpy between the Cigar and the HotDog, then settled back out for the last 30 miles in. That would be our final tally for the day. 2-Wahoos, 1 FA and a happy group out and back on a beautiful day.
Back at the dock, Jake "Yankee Rowboat" was waiting to get a hot report from us and he wasted no time in helping out with the boat washing! Now that's a great guy! Much appreciated after a very full day. Jake, you rock!
Thanks to Stephen Katz and the Anglers from Virginia Pilot, to Don who did a great job as always in the Pit, and to Jake for helping out!
Tight lines.
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nice job on those whoo's

Nice job on those 'hoos Dave and Don.

Nice Job putting your charter on some fish Dave....I'm sure Don was the consumate professional and kept the customers entertained. Especially since he only had a couple hours sleep the night before.....We're still waiting for the premier of 50 FATHOM DON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....


...Bob

Comming to a Bargolla near you!

Fat Albert sushi.....could be the next delicatessen.

Nice job on the wahoo....sure would like to see some YFT mixed in with the hoos though.

No yellowfin yet, huh? Hope they don't pass us by...

Great trip Dave with a great charter!!

Yeah...thanks to Jake(YankeeRowboat) for coming to the docks for a report and ends up helping clean the boat! Top notch guy right there!!! Thanks!!

Dave, I figured Don would be busy cleaning fish and you could use the help. Besides I had nothing else going on and it was a nice day and I was hoping you had gotten into the tuna. Nothing special, just being a fellow fisherman...Jake

Great report Informative and fun to read. Thanks.
Russ

Nice Job
Thanks for taking the time. I enjoyed the read!

Great read! Keep it up for us land locked Joes.

Good job guys. Sounds like another good day for Billable Ours.

BTW....no report from Shore Thing as we didn't join ya out there on Sun. Totally my bad....dead pick-up truck...all day Sun and Mon to get her well again.

Again good job on the hoos,

Yeah Mike, I talked with Pete on Monday and he told me you had truck problems. Hope all is well. Did he get out on Tuesday?? He called me to go, but couldn't get away.

Actually I havn't said hey to him since Sat. Hope he still ain't mad at me. lol

Don't know if he went or not , will go by and give him my "sack of lures" tom. (Thurs) cause I'll be out of town this weekend.

Catch-em-up D